


heart melting

by Spring_Emerald



Series: it's only words [19]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Frozen slash Beauty and The Beast elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-22 03:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spring_Emerald/pseuds/Spring_Emerald
Summary: A story about an exiled king with a frozen heart and an unwitting villager who inadvertently warms it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by anons over at tumblr for the ship+word writing meme.  
> TsukkiKage + 'cold'
> 
> Thank you for your patience! I hope you like it!
> 
> Special shout-out to Audi, who’d been my sounding board, listened patiently and helped me with the characterization; and to Bee and Noemi who cheered me on. You guys are the best!

“How come he‘s still cursed?” Tsukishima finally asks the question that’s been bugging him since he started coming to the manor.

Sugawara, pushing the bag of flour further into the shelf, replies distracted. “What do you mean ‘how come’?”  

“Well, if you all really claim to ‘love’ him,” Tsukishima rolls his eyes because Sugawara can’t see, “his heart would have thawed out by now.”  _How come it still isn’t?_

It makes sense. They told Tsukishima about the curse and how ‘love’ can break it. And it doesn’t necessarily mean a romantic kind of love, but just love in the general sense of the word and feeling. They’ve been here for quite some time, longer than Tsukishima had been delivering supplies and produce, and if their love is as strong as they claim it to be, they wouldn’t be stuck in this situation.

“We do keep the curse from overtaking his heart completely,” Sugawara claps his hand free of flour and turns to look at him. “His heart isn’t completely frozen yet and our companionship is keeping it at bay. Besides, that’s not the point.” There’s a dip in his brows that speaks of his uncertainty. He shakes his head.

Tsukishima scoffs. “What  _is_  the point, then?”

Sugawara carefully slides the basket of eggs across the table towards him, before leveling Tsukishima a meaningful look that made him strangely feel like a child and sighs.

“The point is, we need someone from the outside. One who doesn’t know Tobio like we do. Someone who would see what we already see  _and_  know about him. We have long since accepted Tobio’s flaws and shortcomings and we still care about him despite of it. But for someone else to see past that; to challenge him  _and_  accept him, to come to love him-that’s what would break the curse.” His eyes are glistening, imploring Kei to understand.

Tsukishima is not be the best person to talk about feelings with. He spends most of his time either ignoring or running away from them, after all.

But, he’s damn perceptive.

The guilt in Sugawara’s eyes tells him that the man partly blames himself for letting Kageyama get to this point and be burdened by this curse. It also speaks of determination to do everything to undo it and it’s something that Tsukishima can read too well.

He knows what Sugawara is trying to do. He decidedly ignores it.

Kageyama’s… condition already makes him difficult to like and impossible to deal with. Though he doubts that lifting the curse would make any difference. Despite living in a neighboring kingdom, Tsukishima has heard about Kageyama. His tyrannical and arrogant reputation precedes him. While this nature helped the kingdom flourish, this came at the cost of not having the respect of his people. This very same nature caught the ire of the enchantress who ultimately cursed him that eventually caused his exile.

He’s already disconnected from his people, what with his personality and actions. And so he shall be even more disconnected from them. They only followed him out of fear but did not dare come close to him. But, because of this, no one in their right mind ever would.

Except for the handful of loyal servants who stayed with him. Though it’s because they’ve been with him since childhood, and Tsukishima’s been told that Kageyama actually does consider them as friends (an idea that Tsukishima finds so hard to believe, he keeps mentally scoffing at it every chance he gets).

Tsukishima shrugs.  _Well, good luck with that_ , he mentally tacks on. That problem is beyond him and is not his concern. Travelling from the village to the manor and braving the cold he hates so much is already foolish of him, he’s not about to add another one on his list.

He exhales sharply through his nose, gathering the empty baskets and bottles of milk back. “These are all your supplies for the week, Sugawara.”

Sugawara studies him, then sighs, shoulders drooping along with his eyes. The smile he gives Tsukishima lacks the usual refreshing quality.

“Thank you, Tsukishima.” He hands him a heavy pouch full of coins for his trouble. “Until next week.”

Tsukishima nods silently. He makes his way out of the kitchen and into the living room. He almost jumps out of his skin when he sees someone standing by the large windows, only to realize that it’s the Ice King. He wasn’t downstairs when Tsukishima arrived, and had Tsukishima known he’ll be here, he wouldn’t have dawdled.

His Highness doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard him, instead just keeps staring out the window, stock still like a statue-pristine and immovable. Tsukishima wonders what he’s looking at, what he sees. It’s nothing but dead trees and an endless expanse of white that doesn’t thin out in at least another kilometer from the manor, where there’s a clear division between the wasted winter land and the healthy, trodden soil that leads to the rest of the village.

He hears a muffled whine from the outside, an impatient and frustrated neigh. Oh… he left his horse out there in front of the manor. Damn it. He hurries to the door and his loud steps alerted the King.

Tsukishima stops when he turns to look at him.

It’s virtually the first time Tsukishima’s seen his Highness this close. He’d caught glimpse of him before while walking around the manor, but Tsukishima always make it a point to avoid him as much as he can and only interact with the others. 

He’s heard that he’s young to be a king, but he didn’t realize that he’s young to probably be just around his age.

Tsukishima feels a sudden twinge of sympathy, which he promptly squished as he stares back at the cobalt blue eyes, cold and hollow in every sense of the word.

Tsukishima instantly hates it.

He blinks, breaking the contact and walks by the other composed, not bothering to bow. Only resolutely ignoring the eyes that followed him until he’s out the door.

He stops just outside, pushes his glasses up and pulls the scarf closer to his face. He frowns. There’s no way someone can see who Kageyama truly is. 

He doesn’t seem to be there anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second part! Thank you for your patience! I hope you like it and enjoy!! :D

Tsukishima’s anger at having to brave a snowstorm immediately fades when he sees Yachi crouching near the kitchen fireplace, arms around herself and shoulders shaking from other than the cold.

“Yachi?”

Yachi flinches, head snapping up to look at him. “T-T-Tsukishima,” she sniffles, hastily wiping her tear-stained face as she offers him a shaky smile. “Y-you’re early.”

The scathing remark at the tip of his tongue forgotten, he strides to Yachi, who stands up in wobbly legs, squaring up her shoulders in a weak attempt to look alright.

“I-I’ll call Sugawara-”

“What’s wrong?” Tsukishima frowns down at her.

She whimpers but shakes her head. “I-it’s nothing.”

A shrill, angered shout coming from the living room didn’t sound like nothing to Tsukishima. He pulls off his thick scarf and coat and deposits it on the table on his way out, ignoring Yachi’s pleas to stop.

Tsukishima walks in on a literal cold war.

The temperature in the living room is more frigid than the winds outside the manor. Vastly different from the warmth of the kitchen. He already has a hunch that the King is acting out again what with the annoying snowstorm, but he didn’t think it’s _this_ bad. The wooden floor panels and the walls are covered in thin ice, the windows are frosting and there’s a layer of fog suspended in the air.

The only heat in the room is Hinata’s glare at Kageyama, enough to burn the cinders of the dying flames in the fireplace back to life.

“Kageyama, you ungrateful bastard!” Hinata snarls, pulling on Kageyama’s collar, bending him down to his level.

Tsukishima had seen Hinata annoyed-riling him up along with the rest of the other hot-headed guys had been his favorite pastime as of late. But he’d never seen him truly angry. As much as Tsukishima likes to annoy the living daylights out of him, he didn’t think that the small fry would be capable of it.

Perhaps the King does bring out the worst in people.

The King, who just looked on and met Hinata’s glare with a distant, unperturbed stare. Indifferent to the chaos he’s causing.

Tsukishima glares at the expression, unconsciously clenching his hand to a fist.

“Hinata, that’s enough,” Sugawara wrenches an arm between them but more pushing Hinata away from Kageyama.

Hinata ignores him, pulling and pushing Kageyama, shaking some sense into him. “I’m so tired of people excusing your behavior just because you have a heart that’s frozen. You don’t get to treat us like _this_!” He finally pushes the taller one away, but maintains glaring hurtfully at him.

Kageyama stares him down. “If you’re so tired of it, then you’re free to leave. No one’s stopping you.” Casual, unfeeling.

Yachi gasps beside Tsukishima.

“Kageyama, please,” Sugawa pleads.

Hinata stares up at Kageyama in shock, and the latter takes this moment to remove the shorter one’s hands on his clothes and brushes it off like nothing.

Hinata snaps in attention again, glare returning fully. “You know what? Fine.” He stomps to the other side of the room, grabbing his coat and scarf, ignoring Sugawara and Yachi calling after him and he storms out, the sound of the door banging echoed around the still, cold room even after he’s gone.

Kageyama glances at Sugawara. “That goes to everyone.” He turns and walks away, brushing past a sobbing Yachi as he retreats back to his room upstairs.

Sugawara’s beside Yachi in an instant, rubbing comforting circles on her back and hushing her, assuring her that everything’s going to be alright, that Hinata’s going to be fine.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Tsukishima,” he sends him an apologetic look and tremulous smile, which Tsukishima returns with a glare.

“Why are you letting him do this to you?” he demands, without meaning to. He doesn’t want to be involved in their issues, but being sent straight in the middle of it kindles a protective feeling towards them and something else that can be easily mistaken as anger and annoyance but not quite at Kageyama.

“Tsukishima-”

“Hinata’s right you know. His condition doesn’t give him the right to be an asshole.”

“Tsukishima, _please_. I’m sorry you got caught up in the middle of that, but… but you shouldn’t concern yourself about it.” Sugawara urge Yachi and leads her back to the kitchen.

Tsukishima scoffs. Yeah, right. There’s nothing he wants more than to be completely uncaring about this whole thing, but he just isn’t. He can’t detach himself from this like he’s wont to do with other troublesome things and damn if he knows why. Maybe is the weekly meeting that fostered a reluctant friendship with them, or maybe the way they don’t treat him as a stranger which he basically is.

Maybe it’s the way he can’t keep the vision of Kageyama’s cold eyes in his mind’s eye and just itching to make it look other than _that_.

But whatever it is, Tsukishima, fueled by a surge of indignation, does something that he’s never done before. Instead of following after the two to the kitchen, he turns and stomps upstairs.

He’s going to demand an audience with the king and he better listen to whatever Tsukishima is going to say or so help him.

\-----

Tsukishima finds him on his first try, opening the first door rather roughly, not noticing the way Kageyama startle at his arrival. “And here I thought your exile have taught you a lesson. But I guess once a tyrannical king, always a tyrannical king.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kageyama replies and turns away, the lack of inflection contrasts his words.

It’s not the reaction Tsukishima’s aiming for, so he pushes on, digs deeper.

“Why not? It’s what you are, isn’t it?” He walks around Kageyama until they’re facing each other, somehow delighted to find the difference of height in his favor, the carefully crafted cruel smirk and the look of disdain he has pat down since a teenager-one that never fails to irritate people-gracing his face. “It’s no wonder your people rejected you, even before this whole curse thing. They’re probably grateful you got cursed because it made it easier for them to oust you. They’re better off without you.”

Tsukishima’s barely finished his sentence when cold hands fist the collar of his clothes, not unlike how Kageyama was with Hinata earlier.

There’s a flash of anger in Kageyama’s blue eyes, alighting it and making it alive than how he’d seen it previously. Any lesser man would flinch, but Tsukishima counts this as a win. _‘His heart isn’t completely frozen.’_ Sugawara’s words echo in his head. _‘Someone to challenge him, huh?’_

Well, Sugawara didn’t say that his method should be conventional. Tsukishima managed to get through the cracks and anger is way better than nothing. Besides, anger, especially directed at him due to his own nature, is an emotion he’s familiar and knows how to deal with. Let the King mouth off at him, he can handle it.

But Kageyama lets him go instead, without even saying anything. The brief emotion in his eyes start to simmer to something defeated. He pushes Tsukishima away weakly, turning his back from him. “You’re right. They’re better off without me.”

Tsukishima breathes in deeply and releases it in slow, steady breath. He reflects on everything that he knows and has happened so far.

_‘Our companionship is keeping it at bay.’_

_‘If you’re so tired of it, you’re free to leave.’_

_‘They’re better off without me.’_

He frowns at the slightly slumped shoulders and hanging head, can’t help but see a slightly taller and blond phantom image overlapping the King’s visage.

Realization dawned on him.

_Oh._

Once upon a time, Tsukishima had been jaded, betrayed by his brother’s lies. That had been a while ago, and they have a better relationship now, considering the rebuilding that is still in progress, but during that time, when he’s so caught up with it, he’d not been the best person to deal with. He pushed people away and not dare let anybody in and it took saint-like amount of patience and loads of care and understanding from the people around him, and even a heated confrontation with his own childhood best friend, to help him see that.

This… the King’s situation. Perhaps it’s not that different from that.

“Perhaps they’re better off without you… but you’re not better off without them,” Tsukishima says.

It takes a moment, but Kageyama turns around to face him, and their eyes meet and they stay like that, looking and studying each other until understanding passes between them, along with a sense of kinship.

Tsukishima is gifted with the sight of Kageyama’s eyes alighting again in emotion.

“Hinata,” Kageyama says, then looks at the window. When Tsukishima does the same, he notice that the snowstorm has stopped.

Kageyama rushes out, and without thinking, Tsukishima follows him, and they’re down at the living room and out of the manor, out in the deep snow and cold air, running to the path that leads to the village, even though it’s a long way there.

They stop when they recognize a person walking towards them, the bright orange unmistakable in the expanse of white.

“The snowstorm stopped. Have you calmed down now, Bakageyama?”

He stops in front of them, scarf bundled up around his neck, coat kept close to his body.

Kageyama swallows and nods. “I have. I’m… I’m sorry. You… you’re my friend. All of you are, and don’t…I don’t mean…just please…” he can’t continue his words, but years of friendship allow Hinata to hear what he didn’t say.

Hinata beams up at him and slaps him hard on his arm. “Alright!” he chirps cheerfully, before frowning. “But you have to promise to treat us better, okay? Just because Sugawara lets it slide, doesn’t mean you get to be mean at us. Just because you don’t feel anything doesn’t mean we don’t either.”

Tsukishima speaks up before Kageyama can. “N-Now th-th-that’s settled down, c-can we g-go ba-ack now?!”

The two look at him, seeing how he’s shivering severely from the cold he’s not protected from like Hinata and obviously not impervious to like Kageyama.

“Ack, Stingyshima!” Hinata unwinds the scarf around his neck and wraps it around Tsukishima, which he hugs close to him as much as he can, while Kageyama wraps his arms around him to keep him steady, his cold hands not doing much as it tries to rub some heat into Tsukishima’s arms.

“Hinata, go ahead so you can prepare the fireplace and heat up the living room.”

Without needing to be told twice, Hinata bounds up to the manor, footsteps light even in the deep snow, while Kageyama half-supports, half-drags Tsukishima back.

_God, this is so pathetic_. _This is exactly why I don’t help people because it gets me into trouble like this._ Tsukishima thinks, but finds that he doesn’t regret what happened, not really. Well, maybe aside from forgetting his coat and scarf.

“Hang in there,” Kageyama says, plowing through the snow, unaffected and looking every bit of a handsome Ice King, with his pale skin and dark hair and determined blue eyes.

Tsukishima thinks then that he’s delirious from the cold and that’s what caused him to think of Kageyama as handsome.

Sugawara meets them by the gates, a blanket in tow and helps Kageyama get Tsukishima inside, where the fireplace is stock full of fresh firewood, blazing and warming the place like never before. They usher him to the couch moved closer to the source of heat, where a spare set of clothes and more blankets are waiting for Tsukishima.

Tsukishima’s already dry and well under at least three layers of thick blankets, nursing a steaming cup of tea, when Kageyama sits beside him on the couch and they both stare at the fire dancing merrily.

“I-ah, I want to uhm… Thank you,” Kageyama says, voice soft and low, breaking the unexpectedly comfortable silence that settled between the two of them.

Tsukishima scoffs. “All I did was make you angry. It’s not that hard.” He raises an eyebrow at him, a bit playful.

Kageyama looks at him in surprise and nods. “That’s true. But it’s enough to shake some sense into me.”

“Careful there, King,” Tsukishima says, sipping on his tea. “Or I might think you’re warming up to me.” Something unfamiliar flutters in his chest and it got even _more_ when Kageyama’s lips lift up in a small smile, his eyes warm and Tsukishima knows it’s not just the effect of the fire.

\-----

Somewhere in the enchantress’ home, encased in glass, is a magical replica of the Ice King’s heart, a third of which is covered in a layer of ice. Hairline cracks appear as part of it melts, the water sliding down the slope until it reaches the bottom and drops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> I'm still unsure of my characterization for both of them, especially Tsukishima, but I'm so tired of stressing myself out and leaving this unfinished and I just went to heck with it. But I enjoyed writing this, even though that's the case and I'm really proud of how it turned out. :D
> 
> I hope I can write more of this pair in the near future.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is going to be in two parts (part two is outlined and hopefully, I can post it within the week please bear with me) because I got two requests for the same word, so yeah.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I would love to know what you think of it!


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